Research on English-Chinese Translation Teaching from the Perspective of Systematic Function

Wang Xi Center for Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Research/Institute of Translation Studies/School of

English Studies, Xi’an International Studies University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China

Keywords: System function, English-Chinese translation, Teaching strategy, Evaluation.

Abstract: English-Chinese translation teaching is a key component of college English teaching. The study of translation courses is conducive to enhancing students' interest in learning English and improving their overall English learning ability. However, the current English-Chinese translation teaching in colleges and universities has not received enough attention, and many English majors do not have the ability to understand foreign language materials. Therefore, this paper analyzes the problems existing in traditional English-Chinese translation teaching. On this basis, from the aspects of system setting curriculum, system teaching materials, systematic evaluation, and revision teaching, the English-Chinese translation teaching strategies under the system function perspective are proposed.

1. Research background 1.1 Literature review

With the continuous deepening of exchanges between China and other countries, the English-Chinese translation teaching in colleges and universities shows obvious backward characteristics. This situation has led many scholars to study English-Chinese translation teaching and has formed a certain number of relevant research literature. Wang Qian believes that ecological translation studies can provide a new perspective and way of thinking for English-Chinese translation teaching. The ecological translation teaching system pays attention to the ecological subject, that is, the subjective status and overall related activities of the students. By enhancing the adaptability of students and eliminating the weak, the authors create a translation teaching ecosystem and environment that takes students as the main body and co-ordinates the entire translation ecosystem. Therefore, college English translation teaching can learn from the relevant theories of ecological translation studies, and then improve the translation method (Wang, 2015). Wang Qiong and Yang Neng proposed that English-Chinese translation teaching should establish clear teaching objectives, adhere to the combination of translation theory learning and practical training, and strengthen students' bilingual language and cultural basic knowledge. Infiltrate basic knowledge and skills in reading, develop students' discourse analysis skills, text processing skills, bilingual language and cultural transformation ability, etc., effectively improve students' translation ability and promote the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures (Wang and Yang, 2016) ). Zhang Wei and Yan Yazhen believe that the rapid development of the Internet has enabled university teachers to use Internet technology to improve the quality of English-language translation teaching, and thus promote the development of translation-based teaching courses (Zhang and Zhai, 2018). Liu Meifang believes that language is the carrier of culture, and the translation is a bridge of intercultural communication. It is essential to realize the cultural equivalence between the source language and translated text. College English teachers should be based on cultural equivalence, systematically understand and familiar with the differences between English and Chinese language expressions, and based on college English textbooks, through the effective means of code-switching and structural reorganization, continuously strengthen the cultural pair of non-English majors in translation. Equal awareness, improve their intercultural communication skills and translation skills (Liu, 2015). The above scholars have conducted in-depth research on English-Chinese translation

2019 International Conference on Reform, Technology, Psychology in Education (ICRTPE 2019)

Copyright © (2019) Francis Academic Press, UK DOI: 10.25236/icrtpe.2019.032152

teaching, but the research methods are relatively macroscopic, the research field is broad, and the research is not comprehensive. Therefore, this paper analyzes the English-Chinese translation teaching in the perspective of system function.

1.2 Purpose of research The translation is the bond that promotes cultural exchanges between China and other countries.

Appropriate translation can help target readers better understand the ideological content and cultural significance of the source language (Zhao, 2014). However, in the actual English-Chinese translation teaching, cultural equivalence is an important difficulty for students. Most of the students lack cultural equivalence and the source information is deficient. The translation lacks certain readability. The system function horizon is a new perspective and plays an important role in English-Chinese translation teaching. The core idea of the system function horizon is to promote the development of English-Chinese translation teaching in-depth and to deepen, fill the gap and perfect the theory. At the same time, the system's functional horizons extend its research scope from a research perspective, interdisciplinarity, and application development (Lin, 2012). The English-Chinese translation teaching in the perspective of system function begins with the study of the function of grammar and its embodied meaning and then extends to other aspects. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study English-Chinese translation teaching from the perspective of system function. From a new perspective, it proposes English-Chinese translation teaching strategies, and then realizes the teaching methods of online teaching and online learning, enriching the forms of educational reform in related fields.

2. Problems in traditional english-chinese translation teaching 2.1 Students' linguistic differences are weak

Due to the large differences in Chinese and foreign cultural languages, and many different ways of thinking, many students have the relatively weak ability in the subject identification of translated articles. Some students have errors in the judgment of the original meaning of the conjunction, and even directly change the original theme. Take the sentence in the novel “Atonement” as an example. The original intention is “Although she fully believes that this is his fault, will he still remember the first mistake he made?” However, students often have misunderstandings due to language differences, and there may be translation errors, which leads to the failure of the lexical meanings of the conjunctions to be fully expressed, thus affecting the translation of the entire sentence (Liu, 2017). This is caused by the improper judgment of the conjunctions and weak ability to discriminate between the main themes of the text. It can be seen that the students' linguistic differences are weak, which leads to the students' translation completely deviating from the center of the work. Therefore, in English-Chinese translation teaching, the accuracy of student translation is not high, which makes it difficult for the whole translation classroom to further explore the aesthetics and cultural awareness of translation.

2.2 Lack of teachers with the ability to use new equipment With the rapid development of the Internet, college English teaching has gradually introduced

advanced teaching equipment, such as multimedia equipment. However, many teachers still use traditional teaching methods and lack of skills in multimedia (Zhu, 2011). However, multimedia technology plays a vital role in cultivating students' theory and practice and improving students' professional practice ability. As an institution that undertakes to train talents for the country, colleges and universities have always been aiming at cultivating high-level applied talents. Therefore, the lack of teachers with the ability to use new equipment has a greater negative impact on the quality of English-Chinese translation teaching.

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3. Theoretical analysis of system function horizon 3.1 System function view

System functional horizons are derived based on system functional linguistics. Systemic functional linguistics points out that language is a very important resource for expressing meaning. Usually, language has three metafunctions: textual function, interpersonal function, and conceptual function. Among them, the more important is the evaluation theory, which is a sub-function of interpersonal function, which is mainly used to examine the language expression closely related to values. According to the semantics, evaluative resources can be divided into the attitude system, intervention system and grading system. The attitude system has three subsystems: emotion, appreciation, and judgment. In the teaching of English-Chinese translation, using the evaluation theory to analyze the ecological discourse of the novel, we can deeply explore the internal artistic expression of the work from the perspective of discourse. The English-Chinese translation teaching in the perspective of system function is to use the core functions of the system function to deeply explore the inner thoughts of the works in English-Chinese translation and avoid translation errors.

3.2 English-Chinese translation teaching thoughts from the perspective of system function The system function view allows people to more accurately describe the language. The

English-Chinese translation teaching ideas from the perspective of system function are mainly used in context and foreign language teaching. The teaching of the system function is mainly concerned with the education of language. In the context of system function, language is a social symbol system, which means that the language needs to be viewed correctly from the macro perspective of society. Moreover, each language does not exist in isolation but belongs to a unique symbolic system. Human learning of language is a long process. Throughout the process of learning, relevant scholars refer to the basic unit of language as discourse. Generally speaking, the context mainly includes cultural context, contextual context, intertextual context and intratextual context. English-Chinese translation teaching in the perspective of system function, through deep understanding of the relationship between context and discourse, can enable students to decode and encode specific texts, thus achieving efficient interaction between language and context. In general, the context mainly involves many aspects of foreign language teaching such as teaching content, teaching methods and teaching materials.

4. English-chinese translation teaching strategies from the perspective of system function 4.1 System setup course

In the era of rapid development of information technology, college English translation teaching should combine the characteristics of information technology and explore effective curriculum setting methods. This is an important task for college English translation teaching. The core of the curriculum is to consider the practicality of English-Chinese translation, cultivate very professional English-Chinese translation talents, and improve students' comprehensive learning ability in vocabulary, grammar and culture. Specifically, in terms of curriculum, colleges and universities should vigorously train students to strengthen relevant theoretical research. At the same time, in the English-Chinese translation course setting, it is necessary to systematically distinguish the translation methods of foreign language teaching and the mode of foreign language teaching, and change the teaching methods and teaching principles of English-Chinese translation.

4.2 Systematic use of teaching materials In the actual process of English-Chinese translation teaching, teachers should systematically use

teaching materials. First, pre-view and analyze English-Chinese translation teaching-related materials. Before each official start of teaching activities, teachers need to screen selected teaching materials to ensure that the relevant teaching materials can meet the final teaching objectives, which can fully attract students' interest in learning. Secondly, teachers need to fully prepare the learning

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resources related to English-Chinese translation to ensure that the materials are accurate and the equipment can operate normally. Moreover, teachers need to rationalize the order of use of teaching materials according to the different learning objectives and the teaching situation of the course, so as to ensure that teachers and students can successfully use the multimedia equipment to play relevant materials. Finally, teachers need to create an English-Chinese translation learning environment. For example, prepare a series of mobile terminals that can support online learning, arrange seats, and the like. In order to learn about extracurricular self-study, teachers should ensure that every student can successfully go online to learn, and in this process, teachers can help and guide at any time.

4.3 Choose a systematic teaching method In the process of system function, in the process of English-Chinese translation teaching,

teachers need to choose a systematic teaching method. Teachers should guide students to grasp the grammatical structure and vocabulary according to the different context. At the same time, teachers need to let students translate different materials to further understand foreign culture and improve translation. At the same time, teachers can introduce students to different cultural differences between China and the West, and promote students to carry out more efficient and high-quality translation in different cultural differences. In addition, teachers can introduce advanced platforms such as WeChat and Weibo into the actual teaching process, thus effectively improving the effectiveness of English-Chinese translation teaching. For example, teachers can build a community on the WeChat platform and ask all students in the class to participate in the community. Students can also establish a WeChat discussion group to conduct related learning discussions.

4.4 Systematic review and revision teaching In the process of English-Chinese translation teaching in the perspective of system function,

teachers need to evaluate whether the teaching objectives are realized, and adjust the teaching plan of the next stage based on the evaluation results. The evaluation mainly consists of three parts: First, evaluate the student's learning outcomes. Mainly refers to evaluating whether students complete the translation task on time and evaluate the completion level of the expected goals. Teachers should develop a diversified assessment plan based on the characteristics of the subject. Second, evaluate teaching methods. It mainly refers to the utilization of various means such as student discussion, class discussion, teacher observation reflection, and teaching management questionnaire research in teaching, and initiates formal evaluation to facilitate adjustment of methods in future English-Chinese translation teaching. Third, evaluate the teaching level of teachers. It is mainly carried out through student evaluation, teacher's own evaluation, and other teacher evaluation methods. The evaluation indicators are the ability of teachers to use information technology, the ability to set translational teaching situations, and the ability to use new teaching methods.

5. Conclusion In summary, based on the relevant theory of system function horizon, this paper analyzes the

English-Chinese translation teaching under the system function view. The study found that traditional English-Chinese translation teaching has problems in students' weak language discrimination and lack of teachers who have the ability to use new equipment. Therefore, English-Chinese translation teaching in the perspective of system function should improve the teaching strategy from the aspects of system setting curriculum, system application teaching materials, systematic evaluation and revision teaching. In addition, the English-Chinese translation teaching in the field of system function should also be appropriately invested in the operation of the training base, and carry out relevant skills training, so as to better cultivate more qualified personnel.

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Acknowledgments This study was supported by Youth Fund Project for Humanities and Social Science Research of

the Ministry of Education in 2017 “Interlingual reinstantiation model of the retranslation of classics from systemic functional perspective: A case study of Tao Te Ching”(project number: 17YJC740088) and the Key Scientific Research Program of the Education Department of Shaanxi Province in 2017 “Modelling translation as individuation: A case study of Tao Te Ching” (project number: 17JZ060); Xi’an International Studies University Young Talent Support Program in 2018 (Contract number: 001); Language Testing Innovative Research Team.

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